The present invention generally relates to an information processing apparatus, an imaging apparatus, an information processing method, and a computer program, particularly to an information processing apparatus, an imaging apparatus, an information processing method, and a computer program, which can perform fall detection in precision devices in a suitable and appropriate manner.
More specifically, the present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an imaging apparatus, an information processing method, and a computer program, which can perform fall detection in a suitable and appropriate manner and can prevent a hard disk drive from being damaged because of an impact as well as can prevent undesired head retraction because of wrong fall detection in devices provided with a hard disk drive as a data recording module, the devices including a camera and a PC.
In recent years, with the reduction in size of a HDD (hard disk drive), a HDD is adopted as a recording medium for various devices such as an imaging apparatus including a digital camera and a digital video camera. However, the HDD has a problem that it is vulnerable to a mechanical impact. When a great impact is given to the HDD because a device falls with its head on a disc during data write or readout processing, the HDD might be unusable because of the damaged head.
In order to prevent the HDD from being damaged because of such a fall, some devices have a scheme in which an acceleration sensor is mounted on a device mounted with a HDD to detect a fall by the sensor, right after the device starts falling, the head of the HDD is retracted from a disc before an impact occurs, and thus damage is prevented. When the head is retracted, a predetermined recovery process sequence is done such that it is confirmed whether the device is returned to a stable state, for example, and after that, a process is executed to return to an operable state.
The head retraction process like this is done to prevent the head from being damaged and to avoid the HDD unusable. In the fall detection by the acceleration sensor, generally, the falling state is determined when the measured value by the acceleration sensor is 0 G. However, actually, the measured value by the acceleration sensor is sometimes 0 G also in the case in which a user moves a device such as a camera and a PC as a device mounted with a HDD. Also for this state, it is determined that the device is in the falling state to retract the head of the HDD from the disc. When this is done, a user may not use the device during the period of the recovery process sequence. For example, suppose the device is a camera, a user may miss a chance to take a picture.